Regional Disparities of Health Status in Korea: Finding from KNHANES(2007-2014)

Abstract

Health disparities are a major field of research that has long been addressed in many countries, as there were relative differences in the benefits of activities to improve health. Researches have been conducted on the disparities in health status among the regions, as the physical environment surrounding individuals also affects health level differences. Most previous studies have analyzed the disparities in health status between urban and rural areas, and studies on US have shown that rural health is better than urban. In Korea, however, previous studies have shown inconsistent results. Therefore, in order to understand the reason for the difference between the results of the researches in Korea and US, this study classified the regions based on the characteristics of the region in Korea and analyzed disparities in health status among regions. Furthermore, we analyzed how the level of health varies between regions according to low income and high income class with hypothesis that the difference in health level among regions become more apparent in specific income. Based on data from Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) for a total of 8 years from 2007 to 2014, prevalence of chronic disease, obesity and depression among regions were analyzed on 34,303 samples. The residential area variables of the study were established by regional classification derived from cluster analysis with factor score which are results of factor analysis performed based on the physical environment and industrial characteristics. This study analyzed distribution of socio-demographic characteristics, health behaviors, and health status among regions using chi-square. In addition, logistic regression was also performed to analyze differences in health level between regions with controlling variables. The results of the study showed that the incidence of disease was low in aged rural regions, fishing regions, and rural - urban integration regions compared to CBD regions by controlling individual characteristics. These results were much clearer in the analysis of the low income class, especially on the aged rural regions. In addition, these results in this study were more detail than results of previous literatures to use simple urban and rural classification. This study examined hypotheses that there would be a difference in health level according to region derived from cluster analysis and these results were different from the results of US. This is because the regions classified in this study reflect the characteristics of Korea where various population lived in a single administrative district. This study suggests the necessity of reflecting the characteristics of Korea different from the US in analyzing the difference of regional health level in Korea.